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Rural Development
`Bengal a role model in rural sanitation'
Our Bureau
Kolkata. Aug. 31
WHEN it comes rural sanitation, West Bengal shows the way not only to the country but also to the entire developing world.
In a joint press conference, UNICEF and West Bengal Government on Tuesday announced that the State had become a model for sustainable rural sanitation.
The State, they said, was able to give access to sanitary latrines for 50 per cent of its rural population by the end of last year. The coverage in 1991 was a mere 12.3 per cent. The State Government, in collaboration with UNICEF, now targets 100 per cent rural sanitation coverage by 2006-07.
The State Secretary for Panchayat and rural development, Mr M. N. Roy said that the West Bengal model aimed at generating a social demand for sanitary latrines through the efforts of the Panchayati Raj institutions.
"We learnt from our three-decade experience during several highly subsidised centrally sponsored schemes failed as habits hardly changed and people misused the subsidy. Accordingly, we left subsidy element to a minimum level and generated a social demand for sanitation and privacy. Moreover, we ensured that such latrines be manufactured at the local level and at a low cost price band of Rs 400 to Rs 4,000 so that the money could be circulated within the rural population itself," Mr Roy said.
Mr Rudolf Schwenk, the representative of UNICEF for West Bengal and Assam, said teams from developing countries were fast adopting this proven model for sanitation.
UNICEF announced a scheme for building water testing facilities in the State as part of the State Government's drive to provide arsenic and fluoride free water to over 30 million people in the State.
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